Note: this ThoughtCast interview was broadcast on WCAI/WNAN on Nov. 12, 2006 in honor of Veterans Day.

Carol Bundy

At a time when the country’s attention is focused on the ever-expanding list of American war dead, Carol Bundy’s biography of a Union officer who sacrifices his life in the Civil War is eerily apt.

Carol’s book tells the story of the short, heroic life of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., an elite young cavalryman who embodied the promise of his generation. An ardent abolitionist and reformer, Lowell was also a brilliant battlefield strategist, and he turned the tide at the Battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley, a crucial victory for the North just two weeks shy of Lincoln’s re-election. Shot twice during the fighting, Lowell died at dawn the following day. Click here: to listen (28:30 mins).Click here to listen to a lecture by Carol Bundy on her biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr. at the Harvard Book Store.

Cambridge author Carol Bundy’s first book is called “The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., 1835-1864.” It’s about her great-great-great uncle, who fought and died in the Civil War. Lowell was a reformer, a cavalryman, and perhaps also a dreamer.